Sisyphussy

I’m beginning to suspect that, to a glassist, only one sound is more terrifying than the -ting-ting-ting- of thermal shock: The rumble of an approaching moving van.

I’m seriously contemplating a move, either of my studio or my whole house (yeah, I know, I’ve been going on about this for at least a year). And so today I grabbed a shovel, headed down to the studio and took a real inventory. For the first time, the implications of moving a casting studio whacked me upside the head.

The last time I moved, the movers broke roughly half of my sheet glass, maybe a quarter of the rods and dumped a third of my frit into the bottom of the packing boxes. Never mind, I’d said bravely, I’m gonna melt it anyway…

Almost nine years years later, thanks to living in an area with multiple glass factories (and cut-price seconds), I now have enough sheet glass, cullet, billet, stringer, rod and frit to open my own glass store. So I’m trying to decide whether I should:

Lighten the load with the glassist garage sale to end all garage sales

Start making sushi dishes like they’re going out of style (they probably are)

Donate all this stuff to a worthy cause (which I really can’t afford)

Pay the movers a gazillion dollars to shift all this stuff and listen to the sound of my heart breaking along with the glass

Stay put

Accumulating–I refuse to call it collecting–runs in our family. My grandpa, a brilliant, kind and probably underestimated man, ran a fix-it shop that was crowded with a fascinating collection of old toasters, tire irons and wooden Dr. Pepper boxes.

My sister, a brilliant seamstress and clothing designer, could probably drape Mount Everest with the contents of her fabric closets, and my other sister could shod and perfume every lady in the state of Oregon.

My mother has literally bought out knitting stores. Ask her for yarn, any yarn, and she probably has it…in the “blue yarn closet” or the “red yarn closet,” etc., etc.

So I come by it naturally. We seem to have this deep-seated fear that we’ll wake up in the middle of the night with a deadly emergency that requires just the right shade of green…

I think I’m going to change that old saying: She who has the most stuff when she dies…winds up in the great moving van from hell.

By the way, free drink in PDX to the first person who figures out how that title relates to this post…

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8 Comments

I’m kind of reading your blog backwards this week… and I just read the post that Carol C is in town (Hi Carol – I still have that kiln I bought from you! LOVE it!) and she is house-hunting. She should just buy YOUR house of course, complete with a generous amount of glass. ‘-) And if not, she could perhaps purchase some of said sheet glass and set you free from the pending heartbreak.

Or you could just stay right where you are, melting and casting to your heart’s content! (Sans ants in the computer of course.)

I can relate to your delimma on many fronts. At least our last move was only 15 miles so I was able to move my stores of glass without mishap. It sounds like it might be worth while to stay put until you reduce your inventories some. That’s a tough one. Best of luck.

Being condemned to Hades and rolling a ball uphill only to have it roll back again is a bit like being bitten by a glass desire, the “cruel mistress”, of glass work and desire for more colors. Sisyphus was punished for his misdeeds in life and we all have that clutter in our lives. My solution is to sort and deposit the rest in large shipping container boxes. Cynthia, if you need storage space an 8′ X 40′ storage container is only about $2000 plus transportation and moving to the top meadow so you could store it up here, if you need.

Or, to put it in plain English, folks: Ask first. This blog is first and foremost a personal journal, a chronicle of my work with a fairly difficult technical medium. I'm happy (thrilled, even) to share what I know, and I'll help you with your own journey all I can... as long as you respect my groundrules.

I don't sell ads, products or services, and unless disclosed I buy all products/services mentioned in this blog, with my own money. I don't claim to have invented processes, tools, new artforms, or techniques (unless I specifically say so). HOWEVER, my writing and art (and any errors of fact or fiction) are my very own, original work. Don't blame anyone but me if I get it wrong.